Baby Steps Blog

There’s lots of info out there about taking good care of yourself and your unborn baby during pregnancy. Most of that info focuses on physical things. But one of the secrets of pregnancy is,
YOU ARE BEING TRANSFORMED INTO A MOTHER.
People don’t like to talk about that. Don’t get so focused on labor and birth that you forget this incredibly important fact. Pregnancy is a time of opportunity: Give yourself permission to be good to yourself and be amazed at the growth that will come. Find a pregnancy mentor – an experienced mother whom you respect, that will answer questions and encourage you to grow.
Learn to say NO.
If you ...

1. Engorgement is normal on day three. Cut back on fluids to help it.
True False
2. It’s a good idea to stay away from pacifiers and artificial nipples at first.
True False
3. Going back to work?? The best thing you can do to get ready is to freeze plenty of milk.
True False
4. Some women just cannot breastfeed.
True False
5. Breast milk is a complete food, but you will need to give the baby vitamin D drops.
True False
6. A baby is never allergic to its mom’s milk.
True False
7. Breastfeeding ti...

Choose the one best answer for each question.
1. A breastfed baby needs to eat every 3-4 hours; this gives the mother’s breasts time to fill up.
True False
2. Advantages of breastfeeding include less crying, fewer ear infections, vaccinations “take” better, decreased chance of heart disease for mom.
True False
3. Low milk supply tends to run in families, so if your mom or sister didn’t have enough milk, neither will you.
True False
4. Sore nipples are a normal part of breastfeeding.
True False
5. Breastfee...

Why, oh why do you have to be pregnant for nine months? It’s such a long time! Yet every one of those days is important for your baby. His brain will grow, his lungs will mature. She will have eyelashes and she will be able to breastfeed wonderfully. They will even sleep some at night! All these things, your baby will grow into during those first nine months.
And then there’s us. We change in those nine months too. We give up smoking. We think about the way we eat, and improve – knowing that what we are putting into our bodies is growing our baby. Keep him healthy and safe.
We make plans for postpartum. We plan and scheme to get a...

Did you know that most moms-to-be here in the United States get flu shots? (Well, last year it was 52%. But that’s still most!) Over the years we’ve fielded lots of questions about pregnancy, babies and flu shots in The Birthing Center. Here’s our top three questions with the answers we are happy to give.
Is the flu shot safe to get during pregnancy?
It’s not just safe – it will help you be safer. Even though you might think pregnancy would be a time when your body would have super defenses against illness, that’s not the way it works. A mom’s immune system is actually depressed while she is pregnant, so you are less abl...

I live in the town of Rockingham, Vermont – and we’ve been taking care of our own weekly trash for as long as I can remember. (Sometimes I would look longingly at the trash cans waiting on Fridays in Westminster.) From time to time we would hire a service – but usually we just recycle. And I’m such a nut about no-Styrofoam-cloth-napkins-cloth diapers-etc that we just don’t have much trash.
So it was a real surprise when we took on a formula-fed-paper-diapered baby for a week. I couldn’t believe the trash!
Ecologist Sandra Steingraber, in Americans Who Tell the Truth notes that “family routines are inextricably connected ...

We’ve been taking a look at how to change the world through the simple act of breastfeeding your baby. (Let me never be accused of small dreams!) We’ve thought about global hunger, education for kids, promoting gender equality.
There’s a wonderful secret, though, about breastfeeding. It’s good for babies, good for the environment – but it’s also good for us moms. (And Millennium Development Goals #5 is, Improve Maternal Health.)

Breastfeeding moms are happy moms.
Some of the most amazing research in the past decade has to do with the role of inflammation and health. We are even learning ...
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We’ve been taking a look at the World Health Organization’s Millennial Goals and how our own feeding of our babies can help change the world, both locally and globally. This week’s challenge is: Promote gender equality and empower women.
I breastfed my baby because I wanted her to have all the wonderful benefits my milk would bring to her. One of my mantras was, “My daughter will know that when she speaks, the world will listen! I’m going to respond to her when she cries and she will never want for love and milk!”
I had no idea that what I was doing was a profoundly political act that would change my life and the way I inter...

WEANING
There are times of ebb and flow – if you want to wean most easily, do it when the child is LESS interested in nursing. (Makes sense, but sometimes we are just crazy when they want to nurse all the time and WE are ready to wean!)
Don’t offer, don’t refuse
Think through your own reasons for weaning – and remember it’s a PROCESS not a moment in time
Also think through your child’s reasons for nursing. It will guide you in how to offer other things when you don’t want to nurse. (For example – is s/he hungry? Bored? Upset? Don’t offer food if they’re bored…don’t offer a teddy bear if they are hungry.)
Sta...

This is Post 2 in a series of posts about the World Breastfeeding Week 2014 theme Breastfeeding: Scoring the Winning Goal for Life. Goal #2 is

Achieve Universal Primary Education

We often think of breastfeeding as a way of providing “optimal nutrition” for our babies, without thinking too much about what a big topic this can be. (And by the way – if we know that breastmilk is the normal food for babies, probably we should say that other things are “suboptimal nutrition”.)